Games of State - Tom Clancy [74]
Liz snorted.
"What's wrong?" Rodgers asked.
"I don't believe it. Groups like Pure Nation aren't political activists. They're rabid racists. They don't demand states for minorities. They erase them."
McCaskey said, "The FBI is aware of that, and they think that Pure Nation is trying to moderate their image to gain acceptance among whites."
"By taking hostages?"
"There was a draft of a press release in the computer," McCaskey said. He accessed a file in the power book and read from the screen. "Part of it said, " 'Seventy-eight percent of white America does not want blacks living among them. Rather than disrupt the white world with dead on both sides, we appeal to that great majority to petition Washington, to echo our demand for a new Africa. A place where white citizens will not be subjected to rap noise, unintelligible language, clown clothes, and sacrilegious portraits of black Jesuses.' " McCaskey looked at Liz, "That still seems pretty rabid to me."
Liz crossed her legs and shook her foot. "I don't know," she said. "There's something not right about it."
"What do you mean?" Rodgers asked.
Liz said, "Hate, by its very nature, is extreme. It's intolerance pushed as far as it can go. It doesn't seek an accommodation with the object of its loathing. Hate seeks its destruction. That press release is just too-- fair."
"You call exiling a race of people fair?" McCaskey asked.
"No, I don't," she said. "But by the standards of Pure Nation, that's downright decent. That's why I'm not buying it."
"But Liz," said McCaskey, "groups can and do change. Leadership changes, goals change."
She shook her head. "Only the public face changes, and that's a cosmetic alteration. It's so right-thinking people give them a little rope so they can hang the objects of their hate."
"Liz, I agree. But some Pure Nationals do want black people dead. Others simply don't want them around."
"This particular group is thought to have raped and lynched a black girl in 1994. I would say that they more than don't want blacks around."
McCaskey said. "But even in hate groups, policies have to evolve. Or maybe there's been a schism. Groups like these always suffer rifts and breakaway factions. We're not exactly dealing with the most stable people on the planet."
"You're wrong about that," Liz said. "Some of these people are so stable it's scary."
Rodgers said, "Explain."
"They can stalk a person or a group for months or more with a single-mindedness of purpose that'd shock you. When I was in school, we had a case of a neo-Nazi custodian in a Connecticut public school. He lined all the corridors, both sides, with plastique. Put it in behind the molding while pretending to scrape gum off the floor. He was found out two days before blowing up the school, and later confessed that he had snuck the plastique in a foot a day."
"How many feet were there?" Rodgers asked.
Liz said, "Eight hundred and seventy-two."
Rodgers had not taken sides during the debate, but he had always believed in overestimating an enemy's strength. And whether she was right or not he liked the hard line Liz, Gordon was taking against these monsters.
"Assuming you're right, Liz," Rodgers said. "What's behind it? Why would Pure Nation write a press release like that?"
"To jerk us around," she said. "At least, that's what my gut tells me."
"Follow the thread," Rodgers urged.
"Okay. They set up a shop on Christopher Street, which is populated heavily by gay establishments. They targeted a black group for hostage-taking. The FBI busts them up, there's a public trial, and gays and blacks are openly outraged."
"And attention gets focused on hate groups," McCaskey said. "Why on earth would they want that?"
Liz said, "Attention gets focused on that hate group."
McCaskey shook his head. "You know the media. You uncover one snake, they'll want to do a white paper on the nest. You find one nest, and they'll go after other nests."
"Okay," Liz said, "you're right about